The Nations's "Peace Agenda": "Coercive diplomacy" with military force

[Jacob Levich <jlevich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Get out your air sickness bags.

jake

Excerpt from "What We Do Now: A Peace Agenda" by David Cortright
The Nation April 21, 2003

The outlines of our alternative strategy are visible in the policy
proposals we have suggested in the current debate over Iraq. We support the
disarmament of Iraq, North Korea and other nations regarded by the
international community as potential proliferators. We favor vigorous UN
weapons inspections to verify disarmament. We call on our government to
work diplomatically through the UN Security Council. We endorse targeted
sanctions (restrictions on the finances and travel of designated elites,
and arms embargoes) and other means of containing recalcitrant states. We
endorse lifting sanctions and providing incentives as means of inducing
compliance. We support the international campaign against terrorism and
urge greater cooperative efforts to prosecute and cut off the funding of
those responsible for the September 11 attacks.

****


Of course, a ban on weapons of mass destruction would be meaningless
without robust means of verifying and enforcing such prohibitions. A world
of disarmament will require much stronger mechanisms of monitoring and
enforcement than now exist. The policies we have supported for the peaceful
disarmament of Iraq--rigorous inspections, targeted sanctions and
multilateral coercive diplomacy--can and should be applied universally to
rid the world of weapons of mass destruction. The UN weapons-inspection
capability should be increased a hundredfold and deployed throughout the
world to monitor and verify the universal ban on weapons of mass
destruction. Nations that refuse to comply with verified disarmament
requirements should be subjected to targeted sanctions and coercive
diplomatic pressures from the UN and other regional security organizations.
Nations that cooperate with disarmament mandates should receive inducements
in the form of economic assistance, trade and technology preferences, and
security assurances. These policy tools, combined with a serious commitment
to sustainable economic development for developing nations, are viable
means for helping to assure international compliance with a global
disarmament mandate.
This is not a pacifist vision that eschews all uses of military force. The
threat of force is sometimes a necessary component of coercive diplomacy.
In some circumstances the actual use of force--ideally in a targeted and
narrow fashion, with authorization from the UN Security Council or regional
security bodies--may be necessary. In contrast with the policy of the Bush
Administration, however, the proposed approach would allow the threat or
use of force only as a last resort, when all other peaceful diplomatic
means have been exhausted, and only with the explicit authorization of the
Security Council or regional security organizations. In no circumstance
would the United States or any other nation have the right to mount a
military invasion to overthrow another government for the ostensible
purpose of achieving disarmament. Rather, the United States would respect
the Charter of the UN and would strive to achieve disarmament and settle
the differences among nations through peaceful diplomatic means.

Complete: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=cortright